Modern higher-performance automotive vehicles are typically equipped with a system that uses various sensors to sense the vehicle's dynamics, the driver's intention and/or environmental information around the vehicle to actuate available actuators to conduct suitable control actions to help control traction and gradability performance of the vehicle, as well as energy consumption in a hybrid vehicle. While the known systems are generally effective for their intended purpose, we have noted issues that are particular to a type of vehicle having a primary driveline, which is employed to drive a first set of vehicle wheels on a full time basis, and a secondary driveline that is employed to drive a second set of vehicle wheels on a part time basis. More specifically, while it is known in the art to employ the secondary driveline to pre-emptively apply drive torque to prevent slippage of the vehicle wheels associated with the primary driveline, we have determined that the maximum torque that can be transmitted to the vehicle wheels associated with the secondary driveline should be phased-in or phased-out depending on certain circumstances involving both the terrain on which the vehicle is operating as well as certain vehicle dynamics.